Exit "Newsletter" – Enter "Magazine"

Well, here it is. At 32 pages, Roleplayer has graduated from newsletter status. It's now a real magazine.

Over the years, as Roleplayer has become more popular, we've been able to build it up steadily. . . we've come a long way from the first 4-page flyer! At this size, though, we've got to sell a lot more copies. This is an unsubtle way of saying: Please help us out. Ask your retailer to carry Roleplayer – and tell your friends to give it a try.

Of course, if we're going to shamelessly beg for readers, we have to be responsive. Last issue, we asked what you wanted to see in this new larger size. We're going by the feedback we got. If you have something you want to say . . . let us know!

New Features

One question we asked last issue was "What regular features would you like?" Based on the reader response, we're not going to add any absolutely regular features. When we have a good article about new beasts, or new gadgets, or new magic spells, we'll run it . . . but if we don't have a good one for some issue, we'll just print something else, rather than run a lame article to fill a "required" heading. That's why a couple of regular features are missing this issue – they will return! We just didn't have any Short Notes this issue. And the only significant erratum that showed up is covered in GURPS Q&A, on p. 21.

We also asked about "theme issues." The answer was Proceed With Caution. GURPS is eclectic, covering everything, and our readers seem to want its magazine to be the same. We may have an occasional theme issue, but the theme won't take up more than, say, a third of the pages.

Article Size

An experiment in this issue is the long article, starting on page 4, on character creation rules for horses. Before now, we couldn't have printed this 15-page blockbuster. Now we can. But should we? We think it's a great article, but that's not the issue; the size is the question. Do you like the idea of an occasional super-article (or adventure) that takes from 10 to 15 pages? Or would you rather see the space given to more short articles?

Letters

If we get some good letters, we'll add a letter column. We won't have room to print many letters, or long ones, so keep it short! For this month, here's a question that has been asked over and over again:

"Is the material in Roleplayer official?"

We don't have a GURPS Police to look in your windows and make sure you're playing the game the way we want. Errata, and items labeled as specific rules changes, are "official" in that we'll change the next printing of the books. Everything else is presented (like the rest of the system) for your enjoyment, to use or not, as you like. Any material that is especially far-out, or that contradicts existing rules in an important way, will be specifically labeled as optional. But it's all up to the GM. Have fun.